Comparative Evaluation of a New Sensor for Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in a Molecular Communication Setting

Testbeds are required to assess concepts and devices in the context of molecular communication. These allow the observation of real-life phenomena in a controlled environment and therefore present the basis of future work. A testbed using superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) as information carriers was constructed with regard to this context and requires a sensitive receiver for the detection of SPIONs.
This paper focusses on the comparison between a newly presented device (inductance sensor), a previously constructed SPION sensor (resonance bridge), and a commercial susceptometer as reference. The new inductance sensor is intended to improve on a low sensitivity achieved with the previous device and restrictions with respect to sample rate and measurement aperture encountered with the susceptometer. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for each device is assessed at a variety of SPION concentrations. Furthermore, the sensors bit error rates (BER) for a random bit sequence are determined.
The results show the device based on an inductance sensor to be the most promising for further investigation as values both for BER and SNR exceed those of the resonance bridge while providing a su?ciently high sample rate. On average the SNR of the new device is 13 dB higher while the BER for the worst transmission scenario is 9% lower. The commercial susceptometer, although returning the highest SNR, lacks adaptability for the given use case.